November 13, 2011

Chris Wallace, on Fox News Sunday, did an excellent job of drawing out Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett, who, bound by ethical restraints, was trying to be circumspect. Here's a key moment in the colloquy. Wallace has just asked Corbett about the Second Mile charity "that Jerry Sandusky helped form for disadvantaged kids that quite frankly gave him access to these young boys."

WALLACE: Should actions be taken against the charity or the CEO who allegedly was told about some of these abuses as far back 2002?

CORBETT: ... I'm going to be very careful here.... If you talk to people who have worked with Second Mile, it has done great work.... But in this case, as the allegations indicate, some of it was used to pick on some children and the term was used, grooming, groom those children for Mr. Sandusky's purposes.

Did Corbett just reveal that there were other individuals within Second Mile who functioned in grooming children for Sandusky?

Corbett also appeared on "Meet the Press" this morning, and I thought David Gregory was much less successful in breaking through Corbett's controlled facade. It was interesting to compare these 2 interviews. Gregory expressed outrage on behalf of the children. ("You have to understand people, those of us who are parents, including myself, I have a nine-year-old boy at home....") Wallace, by contrast, came off at first — to my ear — as a Paterno fanboy. ("But, Governor, let me point out -- these are just allegations. Joe Paterno, who had spent half a century at Penn State, did not have an opportunity to offer a full defense. Why not let him finish his season and retire as he offered to do?")

I don't know whether Gregory and Wallace were showing how they really felt or using a strategy to lure Corbett into making revelations, but the Wallace interview was more revealing.

ADDED: Wallace also interviewed Franco Harris, a football star who came out of Penn State, and he seemed very much in service of the pro-Paterno attitude that I thought I detected in Wallace. It got a little odd when Wallace grilled Harris about the distinction — a vitally important distinction — between criminal law and morality.

WALLACE: Franco, Joe Paterno may have followed the letter of the law, or complied with it by informing his superior. But on a moral basis in the end, he was fired because of his failure not any kind of legal breach. Shouldn't he have called the cops when he heard about this abuse, or at least followed up with the person he tell the athletic director to find out where this investigation stood?

FRANCO HARRIS...: Hey, Chris, let me go back for a minute. As you know there was a grand jury investigation, and at the end of that investigation, they found that Joe Paterno cooperated fully with them and had good testimony and there was no charges against Joe Paterno.

And then, all of the sudden, something came out about a moral obligation, and everybody jumped on that. And everybody said it should be a moral procedure. It should be a moral procedure. And like that is subject to people's own train of thought with that.

So, I thought that was unfair and I think it is unfair how people were treating Joe with this issue, because Joe is highly moral person and great moral character. And so, it's very disturbing to me when somebody said this, everybody else jumped on this.

Harris's perspective, which looks benighted today, is exactly the way the NYT presented it in one its earliest reports, as I discussed here ("NYT says Joe Paterno "not implicated of wrongdoing in a grand jury report.") Later, Maureen Dowd — in the NYT — focused on the moral requirements that transcend law.

On "Meet the Press," David Gregory, talking to E.J. Dionne and David Brooks, brought up the Maureen Dowd piece, which, he said "helped to really sort of bring it home to me." Brooks took the opportunity to generalize:

I don't think it was just a Penn State problem. You know, you spend 30 or 40 years muddying the moral waters here. We have lost our clear sense of what evil is, what sin is; and so, when people see things like that, they don't have categories to put it into. They vaguely know it's wrong, but they've been raised in a morality that says, "If it feels all right for you, it's probably OK."... If you're alert to the sense of what evil is, what the evil is within yourself and what evil is in society, you have a script to follow. It's not a vague sense. You have a script to follow. And this is necessary because people do not intervene.

We don't know what sin is anymore. That's vaguely crazy when we're talking about raping a 10-year-old child, but Brooks seems to be working on some larger, brooding meditation about what's wrong with all of us these days.

68 comments:

I have been trying to imagine how Sandusky may have groomed children for his purposes, but only after hearing Corbett say that did I realize that there could be people within Second Mile who did the grooming work for him, and he received children who were ready to be used by him sexually.

Corbett has knowledge of the investigation, and he was trying not to reveal anything that isn't already public, but that seemed like a slip up.

Pennsylvania taxpayers are in line for maybe a billion dollars ... as hundreds, if not more, abuse cases are developing.

Could be a mega-suit will be filed in Federal Court. Victims, now assured they'd survive re-telling the abuse that happened to them when they were kids ... is getting exposed.

Yes. There's a dead DA.

Yes. Sandusky was taken to the judge's office (at Second Mile charities no less.) The prosecutors asked for a half million dollar bail. AND, a leg bracelet.

The judge should have recused herself.

It's over for Penn State! YES. This was a known factor by a few people. Who probably understood "how" the DA "disappeared" back in 2005. And, is now declared dead.

The entire coaching staff gets to bite the dust, as well. Because any new coach that comes in ... cleans house of the old staff. And, brings all his new coaches on board.

For the pedophiles? They held sway since 1977. JoePa was a desperate sacrifice by them. But all those insiders did was add fuel to the fire.

I heard a sportscaster say that "inside football" this pedophilia was not only known ... the "contributors" involved some very rich folk!

Groomed for Sandusky?

Probably "groomed" for quite a number of men. Who used the showers at Penn State ... because it wasn't safe to take these kids to their homes. Or to motels.

TIP OF THE ICEBERG!

DEAD DA.

A governor who was the DA appointed right after the DA disappeared in 2005. He's been very careful not to get stung by some of these wealthy beasts.

Expect the mega-suit. Expect it to involve HUNDREDS of victims. If not more.

How old can one of these victims be now? Sandusky put his "charity" into business back in 1977. Do the math!

You'd think, given that Joe Paterno is Catholic. And, so many of his coaches are also Catholic. They'd have a learned a thing or two about the discovery on how priests used alter boys.

The Vatican has been paying out close to a billion dollars, by now, to keep this story "wrapped."

The stain? And, why grown men kept mum? The "charity" was paying them off! Even the red headed guy ... (McQueery?) ... who saw a rape when he was a graduate student ... and he followed the sound of the shower being on? He's on Sundusky's "team." And, he's benefited from knowing this information; and "just shutting up."

The disappearance of the DA, back in 2005, is just the "cherry on top" of this power structure.

Now, let's also see what happens to the judge that lowered Sandusky's bail. But not the boom. And, she didn't think she had to recuse herself.

Oh, the biggest slip up belonged to the computer that put the grand jury's findings out into the public domain. "By accident."

This story ain't over.

Will Sandusky's "defense" be that he's innocent?

How do you smear thousands of victims?

As to the "adoptions," NONE of Sandusky's kids were birthed by his wife! And, when the story first broke ... back in 1998 ... Sandusky's wife Dottie CALLED one of the victims, personally, to ask him to "retract" his complaint.

What Corbett did was hide by the "investigate" excuse. Wallace should have asked how he could justify not "protecting" the children when Corbett was made aware of Sandusky's crimes. From 2008-2011 seems he was really working hard to get to the truth. The Governor should be made to resign.

he received childrenThe grand jury report indicates he did the grooming with gifts and trips himself. He would entertain groups of boys and pick one to work on.

Ralph-That's true, but the grand jury reports also says for victim 1:

"As with the remaining victims, Victim 1 only came to Sandusky's attention during his second year in the program, when the boy attended The Second Mile's camp on the Penn State University Park campus."

This is what Corbett said. This is bigger than what is suggested in your post headline and lends new interpretation to the pimping rumor. This is all very sick. Were the donors, donating money to the charity or were they donating to PSU also?

Second Mile 11/11/11 statement:As The Second Mile’s CEO Jack Raykovitz testified to the Grand Jury, he was informed in 2002 by Pennsylvania State University Athletic Director Tim Curley that an individual had reported to Mr. Curley that he was uncomfortable about seeing Jerry Sandusky in the locker room shower with a youth. Mr. Curley also shared that the information had been internally reviewed and that there was no finding of wrongdoing. At no time was The Second Mile made aware of the very serious allegations contained in the Grand Jury report.

My biggest problem is with McQueary. He was 28 years old. He saw a guy doing a ten year old kid. He did nothing.

Had it been me, Sandusky would have been an unconscious bloody pulp with several dislocated limbs when the cops got there.

That's not bluster. I took on three guys beating up a woman in Ecuador in the 1990s when I was well into my 40s.

What's wrong with America that a 28-year-old male (obviously a boy, not a man) doesn't know what to do. Did he have to check the Penn State policy manual or something?

You protect the weak against the predations of the strong, even at risk to yourself. End of discussion. McQueary was a useless little slug, one of many produced by the last two generations of American "education".

"We don't know what sin is anymore. That's vaguely crazy when we're talking about raping a 10-year-old child, but Brooks seems to be working on some larger, brooding meditation about what's wrong with all of us these days."

It sounds vaguely crazy to you, but child-rape is quickly becoming the last taboo.

I mean, I was recently reading about a BDSM convention in Texas where one woman who got off on being cannibalized held a seminar on "safe" cannibalization. There was mild controversy, but the end result was a shrug of "If it feels good, do it" indifference.

It is not inconceivable that, a couple of decades from now, a victim of child sexual abuse will come forward and assert that he or she was raped with "love", it felt good, and it was generally a wonderful experience.

A couple of "edgy" academics will note that there is a socio-biological basis for pedophilia. Perhaps biologists will unearth a gene that's associated with pedophilia.

At that point, child-rape will go from a dark taboo to an openly discussed question of sexual freedom. "How can it be wrong if it felt good?" "Well, if there's a biological/genetic basis for it, then it's perfectly natural, right?" "If nobody gets hurt and everybody enjoys it, what's the problem?"

And then?

Well, you can do the math yourself.

We've trained a whole generation that being grossed out by the sexual proclivities of others is regressive or even sinful in its own right. We have told them that such feelings are no basis for public morality. We have taught them that biology offers moral authority.

And, in the process, we may have left them morally stunted. When confronted with a victim of abuse who says, "No, I wasn't a victim; it was the bees knees," or a study that suggests that there might be a genetic basis for pedophilia, how will they respond?

Mr. Brooks is a prophet speaking from far enough away that we really don't know what he's talking about, and in part because he doesn't want us to. Is he criticizing our accepting the behavior of the Clintons? Should we accept Newt or be a 'town without pity'? What if some hear 'gay marriage?' Is it Islamophobia or Islamophobia-phobia? Is it tolerance as in respect or digging a looser moral code?

Some who read between the lines might recognize that I am talking about some of the stones in the foundation of the 21st century gay rights movement.

I have no problem with gays. I support gay marriage and, if anyone wants to dig through Althouse's archives, they can see that I strongly support allowing open homosexuals to serve in the military.

While I strongly support gay rights, the arguments people have made for the acceptance of gays in society (which tend to be based on feelings and genetics/biology) might leave the door open for some pretty dark shit -- the law of unintended consequences and all of that.

I heard the interview too and thought the syntax of the grooming statement was murky. At least I hope so...I thought he was trying to say Second Mile was a good thing but Sandusky used it partly to groom kids. He did groom them; whether others at Second Mile did or not will I'm sure soon be revealed.

I believe this scandal is nowhere near finished. I also think the NCAA should be disbanded and sports be made into separate corporations that benefit the school. The players are employees or free agents, with proper legal representation. Get it out of this paternalistic hierarchy; it hasn't served the Catholic Church well either.

And it becomes more complicated, and scarier, when you consider that a not insignificant subset of people advocate or even get off on things because they are taboo. So if feeling good (or getting off) is the basis for public morality...

Well, again. Do the math.

As much as I hate to admit it as a fairly libertarian guy in the 21st century, there might be a reason why so many of our ancestors frowned upon non-procreative sex and punished deviancy.

And no, I'm not advocating stoning gays or guys who jerk off to porn or anything like that. I'm just saying that sexual liberalism is genuinely problematic.

Penn State lost again yesterday - to Nebraska, on the field, of course. But their real loss was in playing the game at all - a demonstration that the team, staff, faculty, students, and fans all continue, even in the face of the grand jury report, to put the cult of football ahead of the welfare of children.

Losers. Stupid, stupid losers.

They had one chance to show the world their highest priorities. 100,000 people could have voluntarily refused to go into that stadium as a moratorium, in solidarity with all victimized children. It would have sent a powerful message, especially to molested children still afraid of coming out and telling the truth of their ordeals, that their welfare and the need for justice and prevention of further crime of this nature is our highest priority.

Instead, Penn State played a game. Even if they had ended up being the team to score the most points, Penn State had already lost.

McQueary's behavior was cowardly and inexcusable. The problem though is that Sandusky's molestations were going on for years before that notorious locker room incident and it is likely that a number of people knew or suspected what was going on and did nothing.

Sandusky got into a position of power where he could do this because he was Paterno's right-hand man until his suspicious "retirement" in 1999. And yet he was allowd to continue his association with the program for years - I heard recently that he tried to recruit a HS football player for Penn State THIS YEAR. Paterno was the one with the most power and knowledge to stop this and he did nothing.

Well, not really. I don't think canceling the game would have helped any children. And against that, all the proceeds from the Blue Out shirts that all the fans bought went to Prevent Child Abuse Pennsylvania, which is tangible help.

While it's certainly possible there were others grooming victims for this sociopath, it's more likely he groomed them himself.

Pedophiles are predators. The lion looks for the most vulnerable of the herd. Sexual predators read their victims and experiment w/ normal touching..a pat on the shoulder, a rubbing of the child's head. If they get a positive response they escalate the touching and groom them for rape. Sandusky was obviously a very good predator and he had an organization that provided him victims and covered for him when red flags were raised. I wonder what other organization this sounds like?

Youngblood: And it becomes more complicated, and scarier, when you consider that a not insignificant subset of people advocate or even get off on things because they are taboo.

Shouting Thomas: "Never tear down a fence until you know why it was raised," Robert Frost.

IANAJ, but as I age I gain more appreciation for the notion of establishing rules to "build a fence around Torah." The notion is that since we cannot be sure where the exact boundary between right and wrong (permitted and forbidden, good and evil) is, we must set the boundary back far enough so that those who transgress have still not trespassed. As a more trivial example, if a highway is safe for 70mph (but not 75) setting the speed limit at 60 will help maintain a safe environment even though some (most) people will cheat.

Annoying as this concept was to my younger, more rational, self, I have come to realize that most people WILL cheat in some circumstance and this has made it more acceptable to me. Systems must be designed so that they work even after points of failure.

@Ann Althouse said... I have been trying to imagine how Sandusky may have groomed children for his purposes, but only after hearing Corbett say that did I realize that there could be people within Second Mile who did the grooming work for him, and he received children who were ready to be used by him sexually.

Drudge is reporting that the judge that let Sandusky out on bail was a volunteer at Second Mile. State College sounds like a nice incestuous little place.

McQ came into the Penn State system as a teenager. And likely he had been a Penn State fan all his life, groomed to be an acolyte. He reminds me very much of the kids I grew up with who completely believed a priest could do no wrong. It was literally inconceivable. Odd as it may seem I can "get" his hesitation -- cowardly as it ultimately was and a reflection on his immature personality. Paterno was out to lunch, in a bubble and he still is. His comments since the whole thing broke are not up to the situation. Very sad for a man of his previous accomplishments.

Rmember it was in 2002 that the American Psychological Association published an article that said that consensual man/boy sex was not harmful and might even be beneficial . .

Here a link ot an article about the storm this created

http://www.narth.com/docs/pedcrisis.html

Here's an excert from the link:

"The fiasco the Psychological Association was referring to had followed its own publication of a controversial study by Rind, et al. which concluded that man-boy, "consensual" sexual relationships were not necessarily harmful and might even be positive. The Rind study marked the first time, the APA said, that it had been called into the public arena to defend publication of a study."

Kids who go to public schools today are taught that moral are a matter of personal preference.

fivewheels said..."... put the cult of football ahead of the welfare of children."

Well, not really. I don't think canceling the game would have helped any children. And against that, all the proceeds from the Blue Out shirts that all the fans bought went to Prevent Child Abuse Pennsylvania, which is tangible help.

I hope the tangible proceeds from the t-shirt sales go a long way in preventing further child abuse but try to consider the contextual symbolism of that. In proportion to the crime that we are only beginning to get a picture of, I'd say the t-shirt sales are equivalent to "Uh...better put some ice on that..."

Cancelling the game would have shifted the discussion from the impact of Sandusky's predation on children to the unfortunate players on the Penn State team who got the shaft because of their coaches' inaction.

In other words, I'm happy that the talk at the game was about Child Abuse and how to help victims, rather than with no game talk about the football players who now cannot play.

Not happy Happy, but gratified in the sense that I think it's a positive step.

Not to go all X Files but the now presumed dead district attorney's lap top computer was found after his disappearance with the hard drive missing. One wonders what was on that hard drive, photos, emails?

The acceptance of pedophilia seems to vary with the sex of the participants and the institutions of which they are a part. It's ok to rape a twelve year old girl if she looks precocious and you're a talented director. Hollywood has heaped awards on Polanski, and the most talented people there are not only willing to work with him but to sign petitions on his behalf. A good part of the electorate of Nicaragua are also willing to forgive the crime that Daniel Ortega committed. And as someone mentioned, there are all those female teachers. Heterosexual child abuse is much more tolerated than its homosexual counterpart....It does seem that there are many who are angrier with the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church than they are with its predatory priests. Ditto with the cult of football. NCAA types are more foreign to many here than gay decorators. If someone is unknown, you fill in the blank spaces with black colors.

I take a lot of pride in my cynicism and distrust of humanity, but I just can't get my mind around there being a whole nest of Sandusky type perverts in any organization. But after the Church scandals, who can really say?

Chris Wallace is a reporter that can disarm an interviewer with a kindly approach. David Gregory tries to intimidate--I'd go farther and call him a bully--and in so doing compels his subjects to clam up

Walter Russell Mead:"We didn’t need their stinking faith, their stinking morals, or their pathetically conformist codes of moral behavior. We were better than that; after all, we grokked Jefferson Airplane, achieved nirvana on LSD and had a spiritual wealth and sensitivity that our boorish bourgeois forbears could not grasp. They might be doers, builders and achievers — but we Boomers grooved, man, we had sex in the park, we grew our hair long, and we listened to sexy musical lyrics about drugs that those pathetic old losers could not even understand."

How much more do we need to know that in fact, Penn state and its football program and now, I would advocate along with the Second Mile program need to be shut down for good? You guys know I'm right, but no one wants to come to that conclusion or fathom that this is the way it needs to happen. Anyone who defends or justifies any of this is a twisted pig.

I appreciate that Mr. Wallace is a very good interviewer, but to allow Mr. Harris to continue to assert that Mr. Paterno was a moral man without challenging him is, IMHO, inexcusable.

A moral man acts with integrity when no one is watching. Mr. Paterno created a good, solid program of integrity when everyone was watching. But the time that he could have acted with integrity when no one was looking, by his own words, Mr. Paterno did not act. Mr. Paterno is NOT a moral man.

Russell Mead--the backlash from the 60s is that the Boys Scouts of American has become such a reprehensible group that it is banned from being a United Way organization in the cities where the 60s culture was the strongest. There is no moral code in American any more, only laws. The organizations that teach moral codes all have big targets on their backs. It always amazes me when I talk to people who grew up in the 60s (with traditional religious backgrounds) and they are shocked at how little their children know about religion and moral codes--well, it's hard to learn what you aren't taught and it's hard for kids to take direction from institutions that are under attack for being old fashioned or having moral codes that actually tell you there are things that you shouldn't do even if you want to do them. That is why, given today's culture, I find the criticism of McQueary to be so hypocritical. Most people like to think that they would be heroes when faced with an unexpected situtation, but I think the truth is that most people turn and run without looking back. At least McQueary looked back and tried to do something about it.

Shouting Thomas said... "Never tear down a fence until you know why it was raised," Robert Frost.

I believe that quote is from G.K. Chesterton.

Frost's was rather different: "Before I built a wall I'd ask to knowWhat I was walling in or walling out,And to whom I was like to give offence.Something there is that doesn't love a wall,That wants it down."